Spare rooms used as offices or craft rooms are substantially more difficult to declutter than a bedroom or kitchen. I’ve been decluttering this room since late 2019 and have FINALLY reached the point where I feel like the room is under control.
I will continue to declutter items in this space but it no longer feels overwhelming or gets out of control so fast. It still takes a bit longer to tidy this space up if I don’t keep it up. I used this room as the workstation to get other rooms decluttered. It’s the room I stashed donations in. For the longest time, it was the catch-all space for everything that didn’t have an obvious home.
When I purchased this home I saw the bright large corner bedroom as the ideal place to be doing my crafts. What are my crafts, you ask? Here’s the rub. I couldn’t have listed them on two hands. Additionally, all the things that were stuffed into random closets made their way to this room.
When I moved in this room was:
- The office
- Including dead or unused electronics
- The craft room
- Sewing (repairs and scraps for quilts)
- Crochet
- Acrylic painting
- Oil painting
- Watercolor painting
- Drawing
- Journaling
- Photography and videography (for travel)
- Project room
- Living wall electronics
- Scrapbooking (I hadn’t started so it wasn’t a craft)
- CDs of data and music
- Decluttering – anything from any room (it has a nice surface for comfort)
- Sentimental storage
- Vacuum storage
- Unused décor storage
- Spare quilts
In the winter of 2019, I had been decluttering with the Konmari method or with Nourishing Minimalism’s guides and finally felt ready to do a round of decluttering sentimental items. I was optimistic that I would do it only once and never again.
Boy was I wrong. Below are the “layers of the onion” that I peeled over the following two years. I don’t cover the sentimental items at all in this post, but if you’d like an idea of how I approached sentimental items in 2019 see this earlier post about Curating a Boost Box from Sentimental Items.
I made so many passes through this room:
1. Decluttering things I was forced to move
It’s very difficult to go from a cluttered person to a minimal move. I ran out of time. I’d started with the Konmari method when I was looking at buying houses and just 3 months later I was moving. I’d had only started into Misc./Komono items at this point. I started straight in on the kitchen because I knew that the house I was moving to had a tiny kitchen with almost no storage. In fact, I knew most kitchen items would have to go into storage in the basement until after a kitchen remodel.
Since I’d moved many things I knew I couldn’t store into the basement, I started by pulling those things up into the office to sort through. So by the time I really started on the office, I’d made heavy passes through all other spaces. I was constantly reconfiguring my hall closet as prime real estate.
2. Getting rid of donations (kept having to do this)
Initially, I’d move donations into my dining room as it’s the closest door to the garage, but it’s also the smallest highest foot traffic most visible room. So every time I couldn’t deal with the mess or needed more access, I’d shuffle the items into the office.
This is called stuff-shifting and it seems harmless, but once I started to get things out in smaller amounts (and getting past large items) I could visibly see the difference in the room and myself. I felt like I could finally breathe! Don’t believe me? Compare these two photos.
Large Donation Pile 
No Stuff Shifting
3. Assigning things permanent homes (sometimes in this room)
This goes along with sorting the things from the basement. Once I got past the items that just had to go because there wasn’t space for them, I then had to assign homes to all the other items that didn’t have comparable homes to my previous places.
4. Removing unwanted paper
This was my first=attempt at decluttering paper. Easy and obviously unneeded and not sentimental. Receipts for things I couldn’t return or deduct for taxes (not that I ever end up doing that). I did categorize sentimental paper into another file box. I also made sure all budget paperwork was together, all asset paperwork, and all medical records were together.
This is the point when I set up my Sunday Basket or incoming paper system. If you would like to know more about how I do that, drop a comment below.
5. Removing hobbies I either don’t want to do or aren’t willing to do because of effort
This is such a difficult section. For me, what made it possible was really thinking about how I spend my time when I vacation for a week. Ideally, I do want to travel on future vacations and I can’t bring much with me. So mobility is a big factor. Another concern was setup and cleanup requirements.
For instance, I still had oil and acrylic paints. They are messy and hard to clean up. Acrylic is better at cleanup but it has a shorter timeframe before it dries up and ruins items. Oil paint lasts longer but requires harsh chemicals to clean up and they don’t come out easily. All of this times time. However, I’d recently been introduced to watercolor and I had supplies for that. Watercolor can be revived for a long time after use and it cleans up much easier. Painting is just a creative outlet for me so I’m not picky about the medium.
I was able to discard scrapbooking as something I appreciate but don’t want to do. Same with crochet and quilting. I also had a table mount jigsaw but there was nowhere that I could mount it to anything in the house. If I ever got into it again the cost of getting back into it is low enough to be worth getting the space back.
6. Remove extra and non-functioning office supplies and digital media to remove drawers from craft desk
As I had removed the paper, empty folders began to accumulate. I also discovered multiple stashes of various office supplies. I donated my unused office supplies and consolidated them into one location. This is also when I tested every pen, marker, and pencil. I threw away ones that were sticky, dried up, or empty.
For digital media, I moved all my CD files onto a hard drive and sorted them into categories there so I could more easily locate duplicate files. While I still haven’t reduced these items, I did get rid of the CDs that were containing them. I’ve saved digital minimizing for 2022!
7. Getting rid of fantasy-self projects/tools that I know I won’t use.
This one is more difficult. There are certain projects that are part of my self-identity and for reasons that were out of my control, I can’t do them now. Programming was the big one for me. You’d think that wasn’t a big deal as all you need is a computer, right? I have an Arduino kit and tons of specific components to build a fully automated living wall.
Since my car accident, I’ve had trouble focusing long enough to functionally program. There really is no way of knowing how long this will last which introduced extra hesitation. Otherwise, I’d have gotten rid of the reminder of loss.
What I was able to do was clearly see that the living wall components, that I spent quite a bit on, were taking up the most amount of space and I hadn’t really figured out the structure of the wall after at least four years of research. So at this time I parted with those supplies and kept the electronic components and Arduino kit. It all fits into about two shoe boxes.
8. Removed busy-looking shelves – reduce books – move others to closet
I had relocated the shelves to this room from my living/dining room areas to make the space more open. The shelves were mission-style and therefore visually busy themselves.
Shelves in the Living Room 
Shelves moved to the Office
Additionally, I still had university textbooks as well as boxes of unpacked décor on them. Clearly, they weren’t providing more display space. I knew that I may have to replace some of the shelving space, but all of my spaces would be better for having them gone.
This triggered going through everything on the shelves which included textbooks, self-help books, and cookbooks. There were many decorative items as well.
What I’d discovered is that I’d emptied units in my craft desk that I could remove the drawers and dividers and essentially have shelves to relocate items to. I moved about two shelves of décor into the craft desk. The cookbooks went into the closet and I discarded many old textbooks.
While textbooks cost a lot, they do get outdated. The only real advantage to keeping them long-term is if you can reference things quickest in your books and the information isn’t obsolete. While much of the information wasn’t totally obsolete, there is mostly better information out there now. At least in my case. I’d already learned the hard way when the Professional Engineer’s exam (PPE) had many questions that weren’t covered in my education.
Also, as an engineer, I typically recognize if Google turned up a wrong equation so I no longer need books to retrieve equations.
9. Empty containers and bags
The more I got rid of, the more containers I had. Bags, boxes, and bins. I began donating even the nice bins (mostly to my sister). She’s trying to transfer things from boxes into bins.
10. Scanning old school writings and other sentimental papers
I had previously scanned tons of paper to avoid making final decisions. It’s natural to be hesitant to get rid of all versions. However, I can recognize now that all I did was convert a paper problem into a digital problem.
Thankfully, at this stage, I was more judicial. I was scanning sentimental paper such as stories I wrote for classes or speech scripts and outlines for classes or Toastmasters. Things that I actually might reread. There weren’t too many but I did scan the revisions altogether. I find the process of editing fascinating.
11. Converting medical papers into spreadsheets
I struggled with this one. If you’d like more detail on this comment below and I may write a post on this subject specifically. For now, what is important to remember is that not all metrics are valuable long term. Your blood pressure 10 years ago really has no impact on what’s going on today.
My experience is that of a patient with long diagnostic timeframes. I had an overflowing file box. When looking through it, I realized almost all of it was actually billing statements that I hung onto because it was my only record of what and when something happened. All but two files.
After much debate, I decided to scan my primary care records sorted by date and labeled them as I went. Then I made two Google spreadsheets with that a few key people had access to.
The first was my medication list. The first tab is current medication and the second tab is the medicine I quit with when and why added.
The second document I created was a spreadsheet of procedures with information that would allow another physician to request the records from the facility. So it includes dates and the basic reason the procedure was done. It does not include bloodwork. My white blood cell count from 7 years ago does not matter and I’ve had more blood drawn than I have any idea what they did with it.
After I transferred this information (including from PCP documents that I scanned), I shredded the documents.
12. Reducing past financial asset value statements
Many people have intangible assets or financial assets that the values vary over time. Stocks and bonds are the most obvious ones. I had 30-year bonds that some had been cashed and others I still held. Some have physical bonds and others are entirely electronic. Regardless of their form, reports have to be run or received automatically that are statements of their value. They only represent how much the assets are worth at the time of the statement. Many are outdated when you get them.
I went through the documentation and kept enough information to cash the asset and retrieve new statements. I updated their values to that date and shredded all older statements.
13. Photo frames
When I cleared the shelves off, I’d just shoved the boxes of décor into the closet. This time I came back in and looked through old frames to see if there were any I didn’t like or want to store anymore. I donated anything I no longer liked.
14. I hung artwork stored in the room
I’d been storing some artwork that didn’t have a home yet. The larger pieces I’d assigned homes to, but there were some scrolls from China that I hadn’t hung up yet even though I knew where I wanted to put them. Since they hadn’t been taking much space, I had put it off.
15. Move furniture for function and space – downsized chairs
The room stayed in the previous state for a while, but there were a few things that kept bugging me. If I wanted to deal with my mail or any dry recycling items, I had to walk through the entire room to the far corner where my cabinet and supplies were. Also, the office chair vinyl was coming off and leaving particles all over and it couldn’t scoot under the furniture out for the way.
So I took the opportunity to move the space wood chair as my desk chair, leave the chair that’s cover was falling apart on the curb, and move the cabinet into the corner across from the door.
In the end, I love how my office feels
As I mentioned before, I know there are some tweaks I will continue to apply and some items I still wish to declutter further ( mainly cookbooks). In step 11, I finally did feel like I’d found my “Clutter Threshold”, as Dana from A Slob Comes Clean, says. It was easy for me to make room for new items and get to anything in the closet. I was even able to relocate more items from the hall closet into the office closet.
In fact, storage-wise, I doubt I’d even need the table or desk. I would even ditch the desk now except I don’t want computer accessories on the clear open work surface of the craft desk. I just LOVE having that large open surface to do anything I need to do.
It’s time to really enjoy the fruits of my labor. Check out my post on Experientialism and stay tuned for digging into digital clutter in 2022.